


the willow tree march

by Tridraconeus



Category: The Batman - Fandom
Genre: Gen, General Creepiness, a very distasteful lawyer, improper descriptions of first aid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 03:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4206423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all the games Riddler's played, this one is the worst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the willow tree march

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twistedmidnightdreams](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=twistedmidnightdreams).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY

  It was approximately 8:30 on a Tuesday night when Riddler needed to visit possibly the most irritating, most difficult of his informants. Normally, he could simply track down all the information he needed online. Not for this job; it called for more human contact than he liked. Quite a bit more.  
 

His plan had started a month ago, simply to rob a merchant ship carrying important documents and a very nice advanced computer system. Things had been going swimmingly until he hit a discrepancy, a strange blank in the plans.  


Which brought him here, to the dank apartment of Howard Muscovy. The place was ugly and cluttered, the man himself even moreso. Riddler felt quite out of place in his mask and costume, hunched over the rickety wooden table in a rickety wooden chair on creaky wooden boards. The whole place was far too flammable for him.  
  

Garfield would have a field day with this dump.  
  

Still, dealing with it was better than dealing with Howard. Riddler sat, glaring, as the man went through his list of requirements, one thick hand settled on the packet of documents Riddler needed.  
 

Inside... The mayor, the police chief, (nothing on the commissioner... Shame), the university officials-- many nasty secrets they would pay to keep from seeing the light of day. True, the dock overseer would oh-so helpfully give him the name of the captain _of the ship_ , but all the other names could prove to be a lucrative venture if he cared to pursue it.  


  After he got the advanced tech.  


  But he mustn't count his eggs before they hatched, especially when dealing with a rotten one such as Muscovy. He wouldn't hatch; no, Riddler would much rather he cracked.  


_"So, my boy, I trust you've listened carefully to my demands?"_  
 

Riddler nodded sharply. "I think that asking for a twenty percent share in the profits is rather steep." He curled his painted lips up into a smile.  
  

Howard Muscovy was a man with a big, red nose. And when he got mad, his nose got even redder. Right now, it was the approximate shade of a cherry tomato. "Steep? Why, I'm practically giving these away for free! You wouldn't want them to go to someone else, would you? I could easily share my findings with someone a bit more like-minded."  
 

Riddler sat up straight, the lazy curve to his shoulders disappearing. All of his six-foot-three could be rather intimidating, as Muscovy found out. His mustache bristled as he moved his lips angrily, for all the world in the small wooden room like a pugnacious bulldog.  
 

"They aren't the only one with secrets, Howard. Ten percent, and that is my final offer." Not quite condescending, but vaguely threatening. Riddler had done his homework before coming to see Muscovy. The man himself was a nasty piece of work, a shyster who managed to get many corporations off from lawsuits concerning treatment of employees or product control. Riddler didn't care for him, but he had what he needed, and he had enough evidence of his own to put the lawyer away for a good many years.  
 

The nose was a fine vermillion now. Muscovy sputtered and pointed at Riddler, thick finger aimed right at his chest. "Ten percent? That really is giving these away for free! You can't possibly imagine--"  
 

"That is my final offer!" Riddler didn't often raise his voice in anger, but this man managed to grind his nerves into a fine dust.  
 

A fine dust much like gunpowder, ignited by the heat of that ridiculous red nose. Muscovy plopped back into his chair, which creaked in protest. "Very well. Ten percent." He sighed and pushed the Manila envelope across the table, head shaking slowly. "I warn you, if I don't see those profits, you'll be paying a lot more than ten percent."  


  Riddler took the envelope as soon as Muscovy's thick fingers left it. "I wouldn't worry about that. Thank you for your time, Howard."  


  Muscovy smiled behind the mustache, teeth glinting in the yellow light of the apartment. "You as well. _Pleasure_ doing business with you."  
 

Riddler spared one last look of loathing, as polite as he could, before leaving the cramped room. The wooden door swung shut with a hollow smack and he was in the long hall of apartment doors once more.  
 

He could check that the files were genuine later. If they weren't, he had other contacts, and he could strike Howard from the list; he was slightly hoping it. After all, Muscovy was a distasteful man and he reminded Riddler far too much of a certain Mr. Nashton.  
  

There was a sense of triumph in his gait as he made his way to the stairs and walked down. He won either way. Names, or a fortunate excuse to ruin Muscovy and get a better contact.  


  The night air was thick and chill, as foggy as Gotham could get in the dark. It was lit by a few feeble streetlights that contributed enough light to illuminate the sidewalk directly underneath them, but not much else. Riddler's mood quickly went downhill again. He paused underneath a streetlight to flip open the Manila envelope and pull out the thick wad of papers inside. By the meager light, he carefully read down the list.  


  Had be been with Howard, he would have only read the first two pages to assure it was authentic. However, he wasn't.  
 

He'd made sure of it.  
 

And, of course, after the third page... Nothing. Blank paper. Riddler decided to count himself exceedingly lucky that the dock overseer had been included in the first three pages of blackmail material, but he still felt his mood plunge even further down.  
 He had chosen a bad place to stand and read. Perhaps Howard purposefully chose his living space in this part of Gotham to dissuade exactly what Riddler was doing.  
  

"Hey, you! I know you have money on you. Hand it over." Really.  
 

Really.  
 

Riddler felt red hot anger boil up inside his chest, as opposed to the cool condescension he would normally feel. It had been enough stress for today. Immediately, he pulled out his Sharp Question and lunged towards his would-be mugger. The guy yelped, turned tail and fled down an alley, Riddler following hot on his tail.  
 

The guy whipped around a corner and Riddler followed, chest seeming tight and filled to bursting with rage. He wanted to catch up with that worthless good-for-nothing and beat him until his fists showed red-- yes, until he'd drained all the anger from his mind and could think clearly again.  
 

Too late, he felt his foot catch on something and twist. He went down hard, breath well and truly knocked out of him. Only saved from a broken nose by some well-practiced twisting to land on his ankle, he collapsed onto the blacktop and the Sharp Question skittered across the dark asphalt, his assailant long gone. Riddler growled and forced himself to sit up as his spine ached in protest.  
 

The anger ebbed away to leave a raw, sore ache. Shame, he dully realized. He'd allowed his emotions to get the better of him. All that intelligence really didn't matter when he was angry, did it? All out the window for a nice, thick sheet of red rage over his mental faculties.  
 

He looked up just in time to see someone around the corner of the building around the edge of the alley, little more than a shadow but there. Riddler felt the anger reach up from his stomach to grab his heart and choke him again, but he forced it down and exhaled harshly instead. He was calm. Collected. He wasn't going to lose hold of his temper for the third-- fourth?-- time that night.  
 

Tonight really was the worst night he'd had in a while. Cheated, attacked, and _now_ with an audience. The blue eyes and black hair peeked from around the corner, fingers curling around the chipped concrete wall.  
  

Riddler felt rather stung and silly, and snappish, so instead of getting up he turned towards the eyes. "Well, don't just gawk!" The Sharp Question lay discarded by his side, but he picked it up again as the boy (man? It was hard to tell.) ventured around the corner with  a shard of a Guinness bottle clenched in his hand.  
 

"Are you hurt?" His voice was soft. Soft, and hoarse, like he was purposefully trying to make it deeper. Riddler used to do that. And then puberty had happened, and he tried to make his voice _not_ change. Riddler didn't reply, instead opting to carefully watch and analyze. He didn't seem like he meant any harm, and most of his bulk appeared to come from the jacket he was wearing.  "It sounds like you fell pretty hard."  
 

Riddler couldn't detect any mocking. Only concern, and the slightest undercurrent of fear. The boy edged closer until he could get a good look at Riddler, using the frail yellow light of the streetlight.  
  

"It looks like you sprained your ankle. It's swelling."  
 

Riddler didn't see how pointing it out would help.  
 

"Well? What are you going to do about it?"  
 

The boy shifted from foot to foot. "I could bandage it for you, if you want."  
 

"Fine. Do that." He was interested to see what he would do. He didn't have a first aid kit with him, and he didn't think that his ankle could hurt much worse. The boy dropped down to his knees and reached inside his jacket.  


  Out came a pill bottle and a small package. He rustled inside until he found a roll of ACE bandages.  
  

His ankle was made short work of, to Riddler's surprise, and the boy handled it with ease.  
 

"Do you need help standing?" He stood and took a few steps back, still hesitant.  
 

"No." He didn't know what exactly was going on, but he didn't like the feeling of having some kid ask if he needed help. "You may go."  
 

And when did he start commanding random people on the street? Well, random people who had just bandaged his ankle.  
 

"Make sure you ice it and rest it." He piped up one more time before inching away, disappearing around the corner as if he'd never been. Riddler shook his head and grabbed onto the rod he'd tripped over, using it to pull himself to his feet. His ankle gave a twinge of pain and he winced, but made his way back to the sidewalk. Walking back to the hideout took a lot longer than he expected and was a lot more painful than expected, too.  
  

Along the way he fumed. It was a low, angry kind of fume not unlike the ones he'd felt during the miserable years he dared to call _childhood_. Not much, anymore, of course-- youth was the word he used now. His childhood was a puzzle box that had been locked, shoved far away where he'd never have to see it again; and yet, it was blessed-cursed by Pandora and so he could never resist revisiting the awful times and situation he'd grown up in.  
 

Was it the lack of a mother that made him grow up this way? The rigid and sour figure of his father, casting a shadow over his life? Perhaps, it was his own insecurities. _Be smarter. Be right, all the time. You don't need help. You need to be the best. Fool them. Show them. Puzzles and carnival games. Jokes. **You're a joke.**_  
 

Pandora's box slammed shut as he reached the door to the old munitions factory. After the war in Vietnam ended, the factory went bust and the business folded. The place was corrugated shipping boxes and bad shells, bullets scattered across the musty floor when he found it. Then, the shipping boxes had been shoved to a corner, the old munitions swept out, the place checked for leaks and reconnected up to the power grid. Running water. Heat. Things to make it livable. Then, Riddler's specific brand of interior decorating had taken over the plain gray concrete floor, racks of servers and screens and holograms, toys and puzzles and riddles. It was a veritable maze in case anyone ventured in, but somewhere that felt daresay _homey_ to Riddler. Of course he would feel more at home among chrome and metal.  
 

Flesh was soft, but it was weak. People lied. People betrayed.  
  

Well, Riddler did have a few people he had to count on. Not fully, because that was foolish, but for small things. Heists. Plans. Bouncing ideas off of. His henchmen weren't all too important in the long run, but they were loyal and-- most importantly-- had their own intelligence and skills that made them worthwhile to him.  
 

He slid down into his computer chair with a groan, tipping his head back and letting long, black hair drape over the padded plastic backrest. He needed to get it trimmed. It was getting a little bit long, even for his tastes.  
 

A cup of black coffee was in a coaster next to the mousepad, idle tendrils of steam curlicuing up from inside the cup. It had been set out recently, if it was still hot, but he couldn't see anyone--  
 

Somebody had thought to leave him a cup of coffee before leaving for the night. That in itself was enough to make him feel slightly grateful.  
 

And then, ridiculous. Of course so someone would. He was their employer. They were henchmen. It was their job to tend to him.  
 

 ...the fact that he was justifying someone doing something nice for him was slightly embarrassing.  


   He picked up the cup and took a hesitant sip, allowing the caffeine to burn and tingle on the inside of his mouth and throat before the buzz reached his head.  
 

He flipped open the envelope again, pulling out the pages that had information on them. He was going to have a long night, going through and putting the precious blackmail material onto a secure word document on a secure system that was encoded many, many times over. Untraceable IP. No way for it to be connected to him. Yes, Riddler was quite intelligent.  
 

That managed to buoy his mood up enough to where he could start the arduous project of copying down every single detail. If it were during the day he would have simply tasked a henchman with the work; but he wanted it done /now, immediately,/ and didn't feel like texting any of them to come do it, and now that he had coffee he wouldn't be heading to bed any time soon. Not that he would have been anyways, but the coffee provided a decent and welcome excuse to stay up well into the wee hours of the morning.  
  

And so he did, the only sound in the hideout clacking keys until finally the work was done. In the morning, Jeff Moorey would be getting a rather alarming message about how steep the price was for luxury liners to dock at Gotham Harbor, how highly imports were taxed, and how easy it would be to make the accusations go away if he just gave Riddler one... little... piece... of information.  
 

That piece of information being, of course, the name of the ship that would be carrying the advanced technology. Already Riddler saw so many uses for it, for his own gain, and maybe for others if he put it out on the market.  


  He yawned and put the information back into the envelope, saved his word document, and shut down the computer. It obediently whirred down into silence except for the cooling-off crackling noises, a sure tell he needed to clean out the inside and make sure there wasn't any erstwhile dust clinging to the fan. Not only did it slow down his computer, it was a nuisance and made him sneeze.  
 

...Riddler could hold a spring cleaning of the hideout later. He'd reached that special brand of tired where the colors were melting off the walls, computers doing the same off the table. Whoever left him the coffee was both blessed and cursed, in his book.  


  He settled into the couch with his head still buzzing from the last traces of caffeine, and finally fell to sleep what seemed like hours later with a strange tightness around his ankle.  


  He woke up well into the day with the realization that yes, there was something around his ankle and no, it was not good. He stripped the ACE bandages off while cursing quietly under his breath, taking the time to trace the red, raised lumps of the skin just outside the bandages. They certainly were effective. The swelling was down, but the ankle hurt a lot.  


  What had the kid said to do? Riddler couldn't remember. He would just walk it off, since it didn't seem worse than a sprained ankle. Standing up took effort, as did regular standing.  


  Riddler felt humiliated and annoyed. His own body was giving up.  


  A rational part of him explained that /no, it was not giving up. His ankle was hurt and needed time to rest before it would function at full capacity again/.  


  A childish, petulant part of him whined /why me/ and placed experimental weight on the aching joint. It only went to show why he should be mature and ignore said childish, petulant part of himself.  
 

He hobbled to the bathroom to brush his hair and wash his teeth, forgoing a shower in favor of spending a good ten minutes pushing and pressing on his ankle. He wasn't a doctor, he didn't know all too much about the human body.  
 

Maybe if he had, he could have saved--  
 

He forced his mind off of that train of thought. It never ended well. He usually ended up near tears and unfathomably angry, and then the rest of the day held a decidedly sour taste.  
 

He couldn't summon the energy to be Riddler right now. Edward finished his business in the bathroom and crossed the hideout to the small kitchenette area that had sprouted up in a corner. The henchmen didn't live in the hideout, most had their own places, but some of them spent the night to keep watch or work late, and so along the way a refrigerator, microwave, blender, and a table to hold the last two had appeared. Edward hadn't questioned or protested. He was, internally, waiting for the day that a dishwasher showed up.  
 

...he also wouldn't mind a washer and a dryer, since throwing clothes into the communal hamper for someone to take to the laundromat every Tuesday was wearing thin and stunk up that area with the foul smell of sweat and blood.  
 

The henchmen weren't that bold. They also probably had their own facilities for that. Edward was the only one who made villainy a full-time career, he figured.  
 

Not that he made it a point to snoop too far into his henchmen's affairs. He still had the right to know certain things about them. He was /their employer/. It wasn't possessiveness in the least, merely pragmatic, business-minded thinking.  
 

Yes, Edward was good at that.  
 

Someone had left a newspaper open on the table, to the crosswords. A few were filled in but most were blank, and he gleefully took it as a distraction as he grabbed something that counted as food from the refrigerator. He grabbed a pen sitting on top of the microwave and uncapped it, putting the cap on the end out of habit before scribbling on the margins of the newspaper to start the ink running.  
 

Once he had, the crossword was no match for him. He had it done in record time, which was, five minutes for one-hundred words. He felt a small spark of pride and set the finished crossword and the newly-capped pen on the side of the table where it wouldn't get stained.  
 

He took his breakfast, later revealed to be a cookie when he bit down on it, to the computer he was using the night before. It took a good minute to boot up. Yes, he'd need to go through and clean the internals so it didn't overheat. The fan sounded dusty.  


  He opened an email and started composing. Moorey, Jeff.  


  It seemed like too much work and so he reached for his makeup and recording equipment.  
 

He flipped open his camcorder and checked that he had his makeup on, sliding into the Riddler persona nice and easy as a suit.  


    "Hello, Jeffery."  
 

He raised the folder of blackmail.  
 

"As you can see, I have gotten my hands on some sensitive information that could prove quite detrimental."  
 

He smirked, eyes narrowing behind the mask. "All I need to keep my mouth shut about this is for you to kindly email me back the name of the ship coming into your harbor in-- oh, three days from now."  


  He leaned forwards so a strip of green mask and whited-out eyes was all that showed on the screen. "I eagerly await your reply. Goodbye for now, Jeffery."  


  He clicked off the camcorder and mic, reaching towards the cookie again.  


  It was pretty good, he had to admit, neither overdoing or underdoing the chocolate chips. Whoever bought this cookie had good taste.  
 

Ha. Good taste. He polished off the cookie and swept crumbs into a napkin, which was then crumpled up and thrown with decent skill into the wire trash basket. Only a few crumbs escaped to fall on the floor, and he mentally noted to clean them up later lest they start to attract ants.  
  

Nobody wanted ants, especially near sensitive electronics.  
 

Riddler didn't like bugs. The food could also attract rats. Yes, he didn't want rats either.  
 

Ugh.  
 

He shook his head as if to clear out the creepy-crawly thoughts and turned back to the computer.  
 

Work had lost its charm now that he'd thought about bugs. Edward cleared his throat, scoffed, and stood up. His ankle pulsed in protest and he bit back a curse, instead giving a low moan of pain as he hobbled back to the kitchenette to fetch a broom.  
  

It was just common sense. Keeping the hideout clean. Nothing to attract bugs or beasts or anything of the sort. He leaned on the broom and stooped to pick up the dustpan, making the ten-foot mile over to the small crumbs on the ground and sweeping then up. He could have had a henchman do it, but none were here right now. He didn't really need their company.  
 

He didn't think he'd need someone to help him do something as simple as sweeping up cookie crumbs.  


  Once he'd gotten the mess cleaned up and thrown away, he took a well-deserved rest at the computer. The screen then chose the moment to blank out and come back blue, prompting a drawn-out groan of discontent as Riddler grabbed the fibercloth towel, force-shut down the computer, and dropped to his knees to wait until the humming from the system unit had faded.  


  He gently unlatched the side and took a good look in, huffing quietly as the interior was, indeed, filled with dust.  
 

It took him a good half hour to wipe it down gingerly and thoroughly, taking special care with the electronics. When the fibercloth finally came back clean, he balled it up, chucked it into the communal hamper, and latched the system unit back up.  
 

When he tried to stand, he did so in a way that offered his injured ankle the perfect chance to collapse and send him down with it.  
 

It did, and Edward found himself a millimeter away from a broken nose, biting back a curse.  


  He really needed to get it checked out.  
 

On the way back to standing, he internally berated himself despite the fact that it could have happened to anyone, the Batman included. Maybe his unfortunate would-be mugger would have, instead, allowing Edward to get in a few good hits.  
  

That wasn't a good way of thinking. That was thinking like good old Mr. Nashton, which was to be avoided.  
 

Edward grabbed onto the computer table to support himself with a complaint bubbling in his throat even though there wasn't a soul there to hear it.  
  

Mind made up, he would hunt down the strange alley boy tonight, and if he couldn't help, the clinic. He didn't have to worry about his identity being breached with the boy, and the clinic would certainly want profiling on him. The hospital would be even worse, God forbid. He wanted to avoid his identity going public.  
  

_Dearly._  


  He spent the rest of the day in an anxious haze, wandering around and trying to ignore the pain radiating from his ankle. It wasn't all that successful and grew into a nagging, persistent pain.  


  Normally, Edward was good at shrugging off physical hurt. Emotional hurt... Well, he'd rather not think of that. He finally set out to find the boy after the sun had gone down, putting on his costume and makeup before he left.  
 

Maybe he'd be in the same place. If he was, it would confirm Edward-- Riddler's-- suspicions. He halfway hoped he was wrong.  
 

 He didn't have to creep into the alley. He was the Riddler. He could just walk in like he owned the place.  


  Right. Which was why he went in quietly, hand braced against the wall. His ankle throbbed in protest every time he moved, sending red-hot fissions of pain up his leg. Sure enough the boy was still there, and still hiding.  


  "I know you're there."  
 

...if he was still here, he obviously didn't have anywhere else to go. Riddler paused and leaned against the wall.  
 

"I came for you to look at my ankle again." There was no way to make that not sound weak. He made his voice sound commanding and wry, instead. "Since what you did last time wasn't enough to fix it."  
  

The boy came out from behind the pile, more bandages in hand. He'd obviously done some quick grabbing for supplies, meaning he'd recognized Riddler-- or perhaps, anticipated him. "Because you probably didn't ice or rest it." His eyes glinted in the glow of the streetlight, and he pointed to a pile of cinderblocks up against the pitted concrete wall.  
 

Riddler sat, trying to ignore the absurdity of the situation.  


  The examination was quick and deft, fingers ghosting over his now-swollen ankle. "It might be fractured. At best, badly twisted and sprained."  
 

It was being wrapped again, and Riddler had to bite his lip to hold back a whine of pain.  
 

"Can you walk?" The boy straightened up and offered his hand, which Riddler swatted away. He didn't need help.  


  --or, he did, since his ankle twinged in a way that made his knee buckle, and it was only due to quickly sliding under Riddler's arm and bracing against the wall did the boy keep him from plunking back down on the cinderblocks.  
 

"I'll help you get back."  


  No question or asking for permission in it. Riddler didn't protest past a mutinous grumble, and directed the boy back to the hideout. It was a long walk, and Riddler may have stepped on his feet a few times, but he stayed patient and let Riddler lean on him as much as he needed to.  


  It turned out to be a lot once they got within a mile of the hideout. The kid held the door open-- and in proper lighting he didn't look at all like a kid, not with his face as gaunt and eyes as hollow as they were. Riddler looked away and got through the door, waiting to make sure the kid followed him in.  
 

"You can go to the couch. Now that you know where the hideout is, letting you leave would be foolish." Riddler sounded, daresay, frustrated. Borderline angry, but definitely irritated.  
 

A quiet nod of assent that he almost missed. He'd have to tell one of the henchmen to tell him to speak up.  


  As if he was going to stay around. He was probably going to get a sharp warning not to tell anyone, and then sent on his merry way.  
 

"Do you have crutches or a cane?"  


  He was sitting on the far corner of the couch, taking up barely his share of room.  
 

"No." A one-word answer was all he _deserved_. He'd have to implement the cane somehow.  
 

He already had Sharp Questions, so what about something larger? A staff would add to the effect-- all sorts of nasty things could be hidden in it, and it would be a good weapon. He'd be able to keep it even after his injury had healed.  
 

He internally applauded himself for his ingenuity, the small smug feeling overshadowing the shame at being weak, weak, stupid, weak for the slightest of seconds before it faded.  
 

He had to look up who this kid was. He could be a runaway, or in a gang, or one of the many nameless homeless harbored in Gotham's streets.  
 

Or, a treacherous whisper from the back of his head suggested, a spy. Hired by the police, or another criminal, to take him down.  
  

Almost immediately that thought was swatted down. Why would he have gone to the trouble of bandaging him, then? The police didn't have that much foresight-- most of them-- and other criminals would much rather plant a bullet in his head, the simple way. Someone they hired wouldn't look that miserable, either.  


  "What's your name?" He trusted that the boy would be paying attention. Expected, really. His gaze was and had been a prickling weight on the back of Riddler's neck, observing and absorbing as much information as he could.  


  "Aaron. Barnett." The surname was tacked on, like it wasn't quite his. The first was stiff.  


  Riddler sighed and flipped open a search engine, tapping the name in. A few Facebooks, but none in Gotham. All other states, and none with his face-- eyes-- build. One showed promise, and then, Canada.  
 

Riddler turned to fix him with a glare. "Don't play games with me. Tell me your name. Your real one."  


  The look on the kid's face was half shock, half defiance. "My name is Aaron Barnett."  


  Riddler sighed, already exasperated. His ankle pulsed painfully, counterpoint to the steady /whoosh/ of his heart.  
  

Maybe just searching up the surname?  
 

/Barnett/ was tapped into the searchbar, followed by /Gotham/. The yellow books popped up and he clicked.  
 

A little digging netted him ten possible names, with only four in relative age range and location.  
 

 Tyler, Julia, Felicity, Cora.  


  He could investigate from there.  
 

Tyler and Julia seemed to be older so he left those be, moving down the line.  
 

Felicity read deceased, and Cora was adopted-- she had long, dark brown hair and blue-green eyes. She didn't look like the boy on the couch at all.  
 

He pursed his lips and opened another searchbar.  
 

/top causes of homelessness youth/  


  He glowered and shut down the search engines, mouth suddenly dry and throat constricting.  
 

He let the subject drop for them, letting his mind work on the problem for a while.  
 

"Stay the night. Food's in the fridge, and if you have a free moment I'd appreciate it if you took care of the trash."  


  Keeping his hands busy would hopefully keep him from leaving. If he ran to the police, he'd no doubt get a generous reward.  


  The kid just nodded and continued to watch him, hands folded politely on his lap and taking up the barest amount of space on the couch.  


  It was kind of creepy.  
 

Riddler tried to push him out of his mind and focused on his screen, coding and hacking until he felt the bandages start to constrict and rub.  


Bending down to adjust the bandages that were rubbing up against his calf, he caught the ACE logo. Most people didn't just carry ACE bandages around with them, especially kids living apparently alone on the street.  
 

Things clicked even further together and all of a sudden Edward felt sick to his stomach.  
 

He decided to ask later, in the evening.  


  As it always did when he was dreading something-- doctor's appointments, apologizing, any moment of weakness-- time sped by and he was amazed at how quickly the clock rolled around to six and the sky faded to dusky orange.  
 

He rose from his computer and stretched, back cracking obligingly. During the day, he'd been sending him on various tasks-- mostly cleaning up the hideout, making sure he didn't skip out, keeping that pricking gaze off of his back.  


As of now the kid was sitting on the couch again, fingers worrying together, ankles neatly, politely crossed.  


  "Aaron."  


  That got his attention. He looked up like he'd been hit, eyes immediately fixed onto Riddler's.  
 

Kind of creepy. Again.  
 

"Who were you?"  
 

If this didn't work, he'd drop it. Let him leave. What he was thinking of wouldn't suit this kid at all, if that was the case.  


  He looked at the ground, floppy black hair falling into his face. He didn't respond for a few long moments, like the words were caught in his mouth and weren't going to come. Riddler suspected he wasn't going to answer, after all.  


  When he did reply, his voice was soft and quiet.  


  "Felicity."  
  

It made sense. Riddler turned away. "That's all I needed to know."  


  But why was she listed as deceased? He, Riddler corrected. Why would they list him as deceased? That was a question to be solved another day. He couldn't waste time on someone he barely knew, and he had his own business to attend to. Pushing the issue out of his mind and avoiding it would-- it would help. For however long it could.  
 

It was good fortune that let him speed through his work so he could go back to the empty page he was coding on. Normally, he'd be able to immerse himself in the work, but this situation was far from normal, and ten minutes later saw him staring blankly at the unchanged page.  
 

He stubbornly forced himself to tap out a few more lines to the code before giving up and moving over to the kitchen, simply pacing instead of actually eating anything. The kitchen was the most open place in the hideout apart from the place where the boy was sitting, and right now Edward had no desire to be in the same room as him.  
 

He'd... He'd figure it out.  
 

He'd figure it out later.


End file.
